What a Coincidence!

What a Coincidence!
We were all laying in the living room on the floor. There was the mom and the dad and all the children. ALL the children would probably include down through Michael but perhaps could have included Krista and Amy as well. I’m pretty sure that the children from the Meghan on down escaped this plague. The WHY of why we were laying on the living room floor escapes me now except that perhaps it was easier to take care of everyone there and the closeness of each other was comforting to us. Were we on the living room floor because it was too hard for us to get out of bed when one of you children needed us? Whatever the reason our entire family was laying on the floor in the living room at Marble Drive – laying there extremely ill – sicker than dogs – at deaths door – plagued by the plague . . . I wish I could find better words to describe the agony. Everyone was vomiting. Everyone was nauseous. Some of us were writhing. And the sick sick parents had to take care of the sick sick children. It was almost last days apocalyptic. Someone viewing the scene might almost await our eye balls to fall from their sockets and for our hair to fall out and to see us with flaming baldness instead of a well kept hair style. Despite the devastating probable influenza which was wiping us out, dad and I had to clean up vomit and diarrhea and try and keep you children clean. I remember at times crawling to the bathroom or crawling over to one of you children to try and render assistance and reassurance.
As we laid there I remember commenting upon the coincidence of getting the flu every year right after Thanksgiving. We had come down with the flu three years ago right after Thanksgiving and the previous year at the very same time. Dad commented that he didn’t think we had the flu. The epiphany of awful truth came charging painfully into my awareness. This was NOT influenza. This was NOT a coincidence. This was salmonella poisoning from the Thanksgiving stuffing. This was salmonella from the raw egg that I always put into the stuffing for a bit of moisture. I’d watched my mother make stuffing. I learned to put in the egg from her – but she always stuffed the turkey with the mixture and cooked it to death. And our barely warmed, three-day-old, kept-in-the-oven stuffing was almost cooking US to death. The parents CAN BE TAUGHT! And it’s never happened again. The egg is gone and the stuffing (Thanksgiving dressing) now goes in to the fridge for safe keeping. I think we could have been at death’s door literally but I think a kind and loving God knowing our earth missions that we all had yet to accomplish wouldn’t let you children croak just because your parents were clueless. And so we writhed in nauseous agony on the living room floor vowing to eliminate the egg and void pseudo influenza in the future. There are no coincidences – things are all a part of a plan – and when it comes to cluelessness – well the Lord has his ways to around it. J
Marsha 2004